Sometimes Lawyering is Fun!

The law is a strange animal – some would even say, "The law is an ass." Whenever you have a group of hotshot blowhards (oops, I mean lawyers) participating in an adversarial system, where the arbiter of justice was also once a hotshot blowhard himself, strange legal standards and practices are bound to occur. I keep my eyes peeled for amusing legal anecdotes, and have found some of the following in my practice, and others through the lawyerly grapevine.

The role of appellate court is to examine the decision of a lower court, and decide whether to affirm, modify, or reverse lower court’s decision. The standards used by courts of appeal to review decisions and holdings of lower courts vary based on what the appeals court is being asked to reconsider. When a lower court judge makes his final decision in a case, he must make findings of fact and conclusions of law. If the losing party decides to appeal the decision based on a factual finding it considers incorrect, the appeals court will only reverse the lower court’s finding of fact if it is “clearly erroneous.”

This standard seems straightforward, but it is sometimes difficult for courts to explain what “clearly erroneous” means. One odd explanation is from a decision where an appeals court was asked to overturn a finding of fact made by the lower court. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to overturn the a lower court’s finding of fact because "our standard to reverse an erroneous finding of fact is such that the error must have the odor of 5-week old unrefrigerated dead fish." See Parts & Electric Motors, Inc. v. Sterling Electric, Inc., 866 F.2d 228 (7th Circuit 1988).

I learned about the standard because a colleague was attempting to use this standard in an unrelated case to argue that the lower court’s error had that peculiar odor in the case he was handling. It’s one of my favorite legal standards because it is both vivid and ridiculous.

In another case, an attorney filed a motion which was, apparently, completely incomprehensible to the court. The court entered an order
giving the filer a verbal smackdown with a quote from Billy Madison.

"Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there any thing that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

Finally, litigants representing themselves, called pro se litigants, often create problems of their own. I would never recommend that someone represent himself pro se – the law can be extremely intricate, and most people get themselves into trouble. However, one plaintiff, who was incarcerated, filed a “Motion to Kiss My Ass,” in which the relief he requested was for "all Americans at large and one corrupt Judge Smith [to] kiss my got [sic] damn ass sorry mother f*cker you.” He also filed approximately 75 other frivolous and creative motions. These motions included: "Motion to Behoove an Inquisition," "Motion for Judex Delegatus (not sure what that is)," "Motion for Restoration of Sanity," "Motion to Renounce Citizenship," and "Motion for Skin Change Operation." Take a look here and here for a more detailed analysis.

See, the law is fun!